Whats up with automotive indusry?

This is a discussion on Whats up with automotive indusry? within the A Brief History of Cprogramming.com forums, part of the Community Boards category; Any one know what the big plan is? Im still trying to figure it all out.
Toyota is taking over ...

Delphi and GM scrap known great products and replace with inferior products. GM and Delphi think, ahhh, consumer product breaks, consumer must come to us to fix. We make lots of cash.

Consumer wise up to crapola put out by GM and wonder's why GM is always at the bottom of the Consumer Reports List. Consumer then decides that GM is not worth buying after all and moves on to foreign made cars.

GM then introduces SUV which saves their arse for some time until gas prices rise, or more appropriately, skyrocket. Consumers no longer want gas guzzling SUV and thus stop buying them. GM doesn't realize market is changing faster than expected and does not adjust lines to suit. GM loses tons of money, warranty costs through the roof, and ........ poor engineering.

GM and Delphi decide their troubles are not with product but with UAW workers and decide to slash wages, benefits, and pensions of long-term employees. Employees are outraged and thus morale drops. Delphi decides to file for bankruptcy, all the while if this happens, the CEO gets a 50 million dollar bailout while employees don't get jack.

Problem is not with UAW or quality of work inside of UAW, but with GM and Delphi and their refusal to realize their ignorant engineers just can't design a good car.

Toyota is at 120% of capacity and GM is barely pushing 75%.

Moral of the story: You are never too big to be untouchable. Screw your workers, consumers, and investors and it will bite you in the ass.

I'm a member of the UAW but I do not work for GM or Delphi. If you want more information you can read about it at the UAW website. Google it and it will come up.

All the workers do is assemble the car to spec. In my experience I've never been told to assembly an inferior product to screw the company and would never do so. It's not worker's benefits that's killing GM and Delphi, it's GM and Delphi's corporate mentality and their refusal to face the facts.

The news and the media are not telling you everything. It's sick what the Delphi CEO is telling the workers. To make America the great producer she used to be we need labor reform in all areas. Computers, manufacturing, retail, etc, etc...

Now white collar workers also realize that the corporate machine will not take care of you and will slash your wages, pension, and even outsource your job with little or no notice. Hence the current outsourcing problem in programming.

It's sad but now when corporations make money, they slash wages...and when they lose money...they slash wages. It will come back to haunt us because they will be left with nowhere to sell their product for what they need to get.....because no one will be able to afford the product due to low wages. Hopefully this practice will stop.

Eventually what will happen is the other once 'poorer' nations will become wealthier (eventually), industrialize, and then as well need higher wages. Then where will they outsource to?

GM and Delphi decide their troubles are not with product but with UAW workers and decide to slash wages, benefits, and pensions of long-term employees. Employees are outraged and thus morale drops.

GM has had a lot of trouble with pensions and healthcare. It promised large retirement benefits years ago in exchange for lower wages. In those days you didnt have much trouble in ignoring those liabilities, and so the company looked very healthy on that front.

These days they have 2 problems:
1. There are people claiming those generous benefits. Some people estimate that there are now 2 retirees for each worker - not sure if this is totally acurate, but there are certianly going to be more retirees than before.

2. Accounting & Reporting has become much stricter. I dont know the USA rules, but if they are anything like the UK regulations, then pension liabilities are very strictly calculated and are shown seperately on the company balance sheet. Companies now have to worry about these pension funds as everyone can see them.

GM now finds itself tens of billions in the red with respect to pensions and healthcare - and investors dont like that!

So it's not just bad commercial decisions, it's bad historical management as well.

What i think is bad is that Delphi let their workers get too comfortable with their wages. I mean c'mon, $27/hour for putting on windshield wipers on a car is a little too much, im sure many would agree.

Delphi should not have agreed to let workers top-out at 27/hour. Many of their worers at that pay rate are not even skilled trades.

My theory is that people at delphi should not complain. THey should of known that it wasn't gonna last for a long time (27/hour)

Its would be a great shame to see many people on the street just because they got comfortable living near the edge.

Delphi is doing what it has to, and i totally understand that, but they did indeed mess up in the past.

What is GM gonna do when they dont have any employees to give the employee discount to? Hehe, this should be interesting.

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who cringed when reading the beginning of this sentence and those who salivated to how superior they are for understanding something as simple as binary.

what can i say... only a few of us can get lucky, and most of the time getting lucky requires serious effort and devotion.

Part of the reason why unions are dying is because unions cant take the heat from consequences after beating up company managment (physically of course). It was possible in the past as a form of retaliation and negotiation, but now days someone will get something on a video camera. You all know media can make BS and exploite. Point being is that information travels too quick these days. The only place where negotiations are handled with fists and firearms is middle east (mostly) but that is another thread because thats a religious war over there, what UAW and automotive suppliers and makers got goin' is a financial war.

I'm worried about my job, but im not getting payed top dollar, so should i not strike if my company does? thats been a hard desicion for me, I dont want to let my coworkers down, but i need a dam* job. I'm in a mess, I wish i knew how far my company is gonna go with all this, strike no strike, i wish UAW would make up their mind.

I get seriously sick when i get to work and all i hear is STRIKE, it sucks, and im trying to work as much overtime as i can, last week pulling 65 hours, i would do more if i could but there are limits like seniority.

Im hoping.

Last edited by Liger86; 03-14-2006 at 01:18 AM.
Reason: Forgot to add something; didnt want to post again

You could be working under the new Australian Industrial Relations laws just introduced.

Now the boss can pay you under award wages (on a weekly basis) as long as you get award on a yearly basis.

You can be sacked with no warning for 'operational reasons'.

So I can hire you at below award (until you know the job or until the work picks up ect) and promise you more pay later.
Then I sack you before I have to raise your pay, for any ‘operational’ reason I can think of.
As my margins are lower I can undercut my competitors’ prices, putting more downward pressure on wages. A nasty spiral…